The climate change thread

President Donald Trump, who ignores all the irrefutable evidence that global temperatures are steadily increasing and believes global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese in order to hurt US manufacturing, pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord. All countries except the United States have agreed to work to limit global temperature rise to well below 2° Celsius.

The United States is officially the only country to reject the climate accord

In December 2017, when much of the United States experienced several days of Arctic air, heavy snow and single-digit temperatures, our climate-change-denying President tweeted, "Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against."

This thread is for the discussion of global warming and/or climate change -- "discussion," meaning other people besides myself need to participate. Don't make me beg and plead.

The five hottest years on record have occurred in the last decade. And yet there are still many people who refuse to believe the earth is getting warmer. Their philosophy seems to be: "My mind is made up -- don't confuse me with facts."

2017 was the third hottest year on record for the USScientific American, Jan 8 2018

Last year was the third hottest on record in the United States, with an average temperature of 54.6° Fahrenheit, 2.6° above average. Only 2012 and 2016 were warmer than 2017, according a new report from NOAA. The five hottest years on record have been in the last decade, based on 123 years of record-keeping. The record heat means that every year since 1997 has been warmer than average in the United States. And in 2017, every state had a warmer-than-average year and 32 recorded one of their 10 hottest years on record. Five states -- Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico, North Carolina and South Carolina -- had their warmest years on record. Alaska had its warmest December ever, 15.7° F above the average, for a statewide average of 19.4°.

"We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways all across our land," said President Donald Trump in his recent State of the Union address. With that in mind, the President unveiled a plan today that would fulfill one of his signature campaign promises: a ten-year, $1.5-trillion effort to restore, rebuild and modernize the nation’s aging infrastructure. Sort of.

As Slate noted: "The first thing you need to know about Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan is that it is, in fact, a $200 billion infrastructure plan. For those keeping score at home, it’s $200 billion from Washington and another $1.3 trillion dollars of state, local, and private money to be determined at a later date."

Engineers and researchers worry that the plan has both discounted climate science and weakened climate change regulations, which could lead to costly projects vulnerable to damage -- or rendered obsolete by rapidly changing flood patterns and extremes of weather. "The impact of not considering climate change when planning infrastructure means you end up building the wrong thing in the wrong place to the wrong standards," said Michael Kuby, a professor of geographical sciences and urban planning at Arizona State University and a contributor to the federal government’s National Climate Assessment. "That’s a whole lot of waste."

A 2017 report by the Environmental Protection Agency concluded that, through the end of century, up to $280 billion will be needed to prepare the nation's roads and railways to the withstand effects of a warming climate. A White House spokesperson declined to discuss whether climate change projections were considered in the preparation of Trump's infrastructure plan. A New York Times article Times article noted: "Since the beginning of his administration, Trump and his appointees have steadily worked to roll back climate change regulations. Trump’s EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, has taken the lead role in the administration’s efforts to undo climate policies and question the validity of climate science."

George Strait had a country hit in 1987 which began, "If you leave me, I won't miss you.....I don't love you.....Now if you'll buy that, I got some ocean front property in Arizona....." If the seas keep rising, that "ocean front property in Arizona" might become a reality!

Sea level rise is happening now and the rate at which it is rising is increasing every year, according to a study released today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers, led by University of Colorado-Boulder professor of aerospace engineering sciences Steve Nerem, used satellite data dating to 1993 to observe the levels of the world's oceans. The team observed a total rise in the ocean of 7 centimeters (2.8 inches) in 25 years of data, which aligns with the generally accepted current rate of sea level rise of about 3 millimeters (0.1 inches) per year. But that rate is not constant.

Continuous emissions of greenhouse gases are warming the earth's atmosphere and oceans and melting its ice, causing the rate of sea level rise to increase. "This acceleration, driven mainly by accelerated melting in Greenland and Antarctica, has the potential to double the total sea level rise by 2100 as compared to projections that assume a constant rate, to more than 60 centimeters instead of about 30," said Nerem, who is also a fellow with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science.

Sea level rise of 65 centimeters, or roughly two feet, would cause significant problems for coastal cities around the world. Extreme water levels, such as high tides and surges from strong storms, would be made exponentially worse.

Several Southern California cities experienced several days of record-breaking high temperatures in January 2018. February has been cooler but our usual winter rains still have not come. Los Angeles has had only 1.96" of rain since July 1. The driest year was the year ending June 30, 2007, when only 3.21" of rain fell. This year could set a new record.

The head of environmental protection in the US flies first class because he faces so many angry critics in airports and on planes, it has been revealed. Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, was advised by head of security Pasquale Perrottato to travel first or business class to provide "buffer" between him and the public. Pruitt has sparked anger during the year he has been in the job by denying that carbon dioxide is a key driver of climate change and staunchly supporting Donald Trump’s plan to reinvigorate the US coal industry.

Last month, Pruitt said one of his top priorities for 2018 was to replace the Clean Power Plan, former president Obama's centerpiece climate change regulation, which would have slashed carbon emissions from power plants. The agency began rescinding the regulation last year and is considering what should replace it. He has also suggested that rising temperatures could benefit people and has defended the US’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord.

Here is an interesting article from Science detailing how grasses, crops and trees could pull CO2 from the atmosphere and then be burned at power plants to produce energy. Exhaust carbon would be captured and pumped underground. The process is called "bioenergy with carbon capture and storage" (BECCS) and is one of six proposed methods of removing carbon dioxide from the air and slowing global warming.

Vast bioenergy plantations could stave off climate change and radically reshape the planet